WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s unprecedented bid to reshape the Federal Reserve board is putting the Supreme Court in a familiar position, weighing an emergency appeal from the president’s lawyers in a politically charged case.
The court is hearing arguments Wednesday over Trump’s effort to oust Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook based on allegations she committed mortgage fraud, which she denies.
No president has fired a sitting Fed governor in the agency’s 112-year history.
The true motivation, Trump’s critics say, is the Republican president’s desire to wrest control of U.S. interest rate policy. Trump wants interest rates to fall sharply so the government can borrow more cheaply and Americans can pay lower borrowing costs for new homes, cars or other large purchases, as worries about high costs have soured some voters on his economic management.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the board cut a key interest rate three times in a row in the last four months of 2025, but that’s more slowly than Trump wants. The Fed also suggested it may leave rates unchanged in coming months, concerned about triggering higher inflation.
Powell is expected to be in attendance when the justices take up an emergency plea from the Trump administration to be allowed to remove Cook from her job while her challenge to the firing plays out in court. Judges on lower courts have allowed her to remain in her post as one of seven central bank governors.
If Trump could name someone to take Cook’s place, he would have four of his appointees on the seven-member board. Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s governing board, was appointed in 2022 by President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
The justices are being asked to effectively bless Trump’s effort to undermine the Fed’s independence, said Columbia University law professor Lev Menand, who has joined a brief in support of Cook.
“This case is about much more than Cook,” Menand said. “It’s about whether President Trump will be able to take over the Federal Reserve board in the coming months.”
The threat to the Fed’s independence spurred Powell’s three living predecessors, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen, to weigh in on Cook’s behalf. They were joined by five former Treasury secretaries appointed by presidents of both political parties and other former high-ranking economic officials.
In their filing, lawyers for the former officials wrote that immediately ousting Cook “would expose the Federal Reserve to political influences, thereby eroding public confidence in the Fed’s independence and jeopardizing the credibility and efficacy of U.S. monetary policy.”
Economists warn that a politicized Fed that caves in to the president’s demands will damage its credibility as an inflation fighter and likely lead investors to demand higher rates before investing in U.S. treasuries.
With Cook’s case under review at the high court, Trump dramatically escalated his confrontation with the Fed. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation of Powell and has served the central bank with subpoenas.
Powell himself took the rare step of responding to Trump, calling the threat of criminal charges “pretexts” that mask the real reason, Trump’s frustration over interest rates. The Justice Dep